Clinton Hill: There are a few places in the nabe to find gluten-free products, but one celiac sufferer would like to find out about any others. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Lower East Side: Video of a Tailor bartender doing his thing. [Snack]
Midtown East: Former Savoy chef Matt Weingarten's year-long plans to start dinner service at Café St. Bart’s will come to fruition on May 5. [Zagat]
Upper West Side: Bar Boulud may claim the top charcuterie in town (though Mia Dona’s stepping up), but you can also find some tasty stand-ins at Café d’Alsace and elsewhere, including Fort Greene’s Stonehome Wine Bar. [Citysearch]
West Village: Spencer Morgan of the New York Observer supposedly slapped Hud Morgan from Men’s Vogue at the Beatrice Inn on Wednesday night because the latter didn’t respond to the former’s apology e-mail. A true New York noble. [Gawker]

There is no shortage of French restaurants in New York yet – Simon Oren’s mini-empire of Marseille, Nice Matin, and Café d’Alsace come to mind – but it’s not like it used to be. Back in the day, French food was gloriously rich and heavy, the product of hundreds of years of home cooking in deep pots hanging over fireplaces. Oren’s new restaurant, Cote d’Or, opens tomorrow and draws on the traditional cuisine of Burgundy: coq au vin, bouef bourguignon, pork rilettes, even the truly hard-core cassoulet of snails.

Whom can we hold responsible for the music that gets played in restaurants? [NYT]
Tasca, Po, and Cambodian Cuisine opening; Sumile metamorphosing into Sumile Sushi. [NYT]
Starbucks hops on the trans-fat banned-wagon. [Food Business Review]
The story behind Dona’s closing (with a plea to understand the developer responsible for it). [NYP]
Related: Dona Closing Saturday!
Caviar once again flowing from the Caspian Sea to the U.S. [NYT]